Safari unable to play videos of multiple types intermittently.

Question

After a few hours of use, Safari will cease to be able to play back videos of any type (youtube, quicktime, myspace) until I quit Safari and relaunch. This is very tedious, as I will often have to enter multiple passwords again, not to mention type in a bunch of addresses and open/organize multiple tabs. I am wondering what causes this to happen, and if there is any way to fix it besides quitting. Resetting Safari doesn't seem to help. I have to quit as far as I can tell. Any information would be appreciated.

Answer 1

First try this:
Empty Safari's cache (from the Safari menu), then close Safari.
Go to Home/Library/Safari and delete the following files:
form values
download.plist
Then go to Home/Library/Preferences and delete
com.apple.Safari.plist
Repair permissions (in Disk Utility).
Start up Safari again, and things should have improved.
If you are still having problems, check through the following and ensure you have all the plug-ins installed:
These are the downloads and the settings you need in order to view/hear pretty much everything that the net can throw at you: The setup described below has proved repeatedly successful on both PPC and Intel macs, but nothing in life carries a guarantee!
It is known to work in the great majority of cases with Safari 3.0.4, 3.1, 3.1.1, QT 7.3, 7.4.x and 7.5 and OS 10.4.11.
Assuming you already run Tiger versions OS 10.4.11 and have Quicktime 7.2 or above, and are using Safari 2 or 3, download and install (or re-install even if you already had them) the latest versions, suitable for your flavor of Mac, of:
RealPlayer 11 (which is no longer in beta) for Mac from (you may need a different site for the US):
http://uk.real.com/player/mac/
Flip4Mac WMV Player from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx (Windows Media Player for the Mac is no longer supported, even by Microsoft)
Perian from http://perian.org/
You should read this support page http://perian.org/#support in case you need to delete older codecs.
Adobe FlashPlayer should first be uninstalled using the appropriate uninstaller available here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14157&sliceId=2 and then the latest version obtained from here: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1ProdVersion=ShockwaveFlash and installed.
(You can check here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/ to see which version you should install for your Mac and OS, but please see my footnote if you are running Leopard.)
In earlier versions than QT 7.1.3 in Quicktime Preferences, under advanced, UNcheck Enable Flash, and under Mime settings/Miscellananeous only check Quicktime HTML (QHTM).
You should also ensure, if you are running Tiger 10.4.11, that you have downloaded and installed all the correct version for your Mac of Security Updates up to and including 2008-003. (N.B. Security Updates require both a restart and a permission repair.)
In Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime/ delete any files relating to DivX (Perian already has them). However it should be noted that Perian is not an internet plugin and will not play DivX files imbedded on a website. For that you will need the DivX Player browser plugin available from http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/
Now go to Safari Preferences/Security, and tick the boxes under Web Content (all 4 of them) to enable Java.
Lastly open Audio Midi Setup (which you will find in the Utilities Folder of your Applications Folder) and click on Audio Devices. Make sure that both Audio Input and Audio Output, under Format, are set to 44100 Hz, and that you have selected 'Built in Audio'.
Important: Now repair permissions and restart.
You should also consider having the free VLC Player from http://www.videolan.org/ in your armory, as this plays almost anything that DVD Player might not.
There is an additional 'fix' you could try if you are having problems with Flash and Quicktime, depending on which type of Mac you have:
On Intel Macs, make sure that you are not running Safari in Rosetta. You can check this, and change it, in the Get Info window.
On PPC Macs, go to the Hard Disk/Library/Internet Plug-Ins folder, and drag the file 'QuickTime Plugin.webplugin' to the desktop. Quit and restart Safari. If things have improved you can trash that file. If they haven't put it back, as the lack of this plug-in can cause QT content in some widgets to cease functioning.
And now there is an additional kid on the block: SilverLight. Microsoft has created their own version of what a replacement for Flash should be. You can read more about it here:
http://silverlight.net/
So, if you go to any sites that have been designed for this new Silverlight stuff, you can download the plug-in from here (but make certain that you are downloading SilverLight v.1.0 for OS X (10.4.8 upwards):
http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/
FOOTNOTE
If you are running Leopard:
Some users have mentioned that the latest Flash Player (v.9.0.115.0) conflicts with Leopard, and that they have needed to revert to v. 9.0.47. This can be downloaded from here:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14266&sliceId=1